Subject Seven

Chapter Thirty-one
Joe Bronx

Joe closed his eyes for a moment and reached out with his mind, seeing the Others around him. Not-Kyrie was right next to him, her fury abated for the moment. She was happy, enjoying the freedom that came from being awake and in control.

Not-Cody was at the back of the building, looking down at his broken toys. He could see the creature, but it was harder to understand what was going through Not-Cody’s mind than he expected. This one, he thought, could be trouble. Time would tell.

The pain he felt from Not-Gene and Not-Tina was dimmed because it was theirs. He could feel it, could register what it was, but it had little to do with him directly. Joe looked through their eyes and saw the situation.

His commands were direct and required no words, no names. He directed Not-Cody to move to the front of the building as quickly as possible and at the same time he reached down and pulled the Taser from the belt of the man who’d been giving him information very reluctantly. Not-Kyrie followed his lead and pulled another of the weapons from one of the men sprawled across the rooftop.

Not-Cody didn’t resist the commands. He simply moved, charging around the side of the building with astonishing speed for so large a figure. He didn’t bother with weapons. That was just as well. Joe was pretty sure the boy had no idea how to use any weapons.

Joe walked to the front of the building and looked down. Not-Gene and Not-Tina were on the ground, both of them twitching and uttering small noises as they were jolted again. Even if the power were shut off, it would be a few minutes before they were recovered enough to do anything at all. The men in black uniforms stood around them, and two of them were preparing handcuffs.

His immediate response was rage. But he knew that anger was a tool, and like everything else it had a place and a time-and this wasn’t it.

That was what he understood that the Others did not. They brutalized their enemies with wild abandon, not caring about the consequences of their actions. They were too new, too young to fully understand.

He aimed the Taser at the soldier juicing Not-Tina. Not-Kyrie took aim carefully and fired, and the other guard with a Taser dropped to the ground, screaming out a high-pitched yelp of pain.

Nineteen feet below, the soldiers were starting to look in their direction. “Now.” He spoke aloud but also with his head and Not-Cody responded, moving around the side of the building and roaring.

The men turned toward the sudden distraction and two of them opened fire with their weapons. They were not fast enough. In their defense, they were only human.

Bullets cut the air and the ground around where Not-Cody had been. The Other had jumped, his body clearing the ground, then landing briefly against the side of the building. His hand caught the brick surface, helped him keep his balance for a moment as he repositioned himself, and then he jumped again, this time firing himself at the soldiers like a living missile.

Joe and Not-Kyrie jumped down from above with one graceful move. They worked together as if they’d been trained to do so for years, but only because she trusted Joe and listened to his mental commands.

The fight was over before it really started. Joe watched his peers as they brutalized the soldiers and nodded. They were as fast and strong as he’d hoped, as fast and strong as him. That was important because they’d be asked to do a lot more before everything was done.

Joe flexed his arm and felt the muscles ripple and pull. A bullet had punched clean through his bicep and it hurt, yes, but it didn’t incapacitate.

And it was healing fast. He could feel the muscles knitting themselves back together, and the blood had stopped flowing down his arm.

He was alive. And he was no longer alone.

Not-Gene crawled slowly back to his feet, his body shaking. A moment later Not-Tina did the same, her skin pale and sweating. Joe felt for them; he’d been hit by Tasers before and knew exactly how painful the sensation was.

“Give it a few minutes, guys. You’ll feel better.”

“Who are these losers?” Not-Kyrie sneered down at the unconscious and the dead. They were all the same to her-Joe could feel that. They were a good excuse to lash out, and as far as Not-Kyrie was concerned, they didn’t even qualify as worthy of consideration beyond that. If they lived or died, it meant nothing because they were not her. She, like all of their kind, was extremely self-centered.

“Well, whoever they are, they want us captured or dead. That makes them the enemy.” Joe looked at his arm. The bullet wound had completely scabbed over.

“They must really, really want us badly.” Not-Cody’s voice was strained, but Joe sensed a certain amusement from him.

“Why?” Not-Kyrie was frowning, her full lower lip stuck out like a diving board. Even with the sour expression, she was a striking figure.

Not-Cody pointed with his right hand. All of them looked where he pointed.

All of them saw the helicopter coming for them. The vehicle was jet black and carrying two large black boxes perched just above the landing skids.

Not-Gene was still recovering. Not-Tina was already on her feet and looked like she was ready to go again. Joe winced as he grabbed Not-Gene by an arm and started moving. “Run! Run! Run!”

They ran. The five of them moved as quickly as they could, even as the black boxes on the helicopter opened, the fronts blooming like mechanical flowers, and vomited a hail of destruction on the warehouse where they’d been only ten minutes earlier.

The shells shrieked as they struck the building and roared as they exploded. Ten, eleven, a full dozen mortars struck, blasting the building into a colossal fireball as the Others ran.

The shock wave lifted Joe and his cohorts into the air, little more than rag dolls in a hurricane, and Joe gnashed his teeth. He hated feeling helpless more than anything,

They landed hard, scattered all across the street, and Joe once again took command, barking silent orders.

As the flames expanded and the smoke rose in a thick black column from what had been the warehouse, Not-Gene reached out and lifted the manhole cover from the center of the road next to him and crouched low as the others scurried and scrambled their way down into the darkness.

The copter’s blades sliced the air and blew the smoke away from the crater and Joe watched as the vehicle looked for them. They were lucky. Either the smoke stopped the occupants from seeing them or they’d been told not to blow up the rest of the block along with the building they’d already destroyed.

Not-Gene dropped the cover back in place, sealing them off from anyone looking for them. Joe stood in the ankle-deep filth of the sewer.

“Where are we going?” Not-Tina’s voice was only a little petulant.

Joe grinned. “We’re going for a night on the town, kiddies. I think we earned it.”

“We need better clothes.” Not-Kyrie’s voice was still agitated.

“We’ll get them.”

“We need-”

He held up his hand for silence. “We’re going to get clothes. We’re going to get money. We’re going to eat like kings. And then, we’re going back to the hotel to leave a message for the failures.”

“What’s my name?” Not-Cody asked the question casually.

Joe shrugged and suppressed a wince as his arm reminded him that it was still hurting. “You tell me.”

“What do you mean?” A quick frown.

“I mean you’re not Cody. He already has a name. You have to decide for yourself what you want to be called.”

Not-Cody stared at him in the darkness of the sewer tunnel-the darkness barely affected any of them-and smiled. “Cool.”

“Give it some thought. Until then, I’m just calling you ‘Hey, you.’”

They walked in silence for a while, which suited Joe just fine because his ears were still ringing from the explosions earlier.